Conrad Schick (1822–1901), the Palestine Exploration Fund and an 'Archaic Hebrew' Inscription from Jerusalem

Abstract

During the years that Conrad Schick was a resident of Jerusalem, between 1846 and 1901, he was in close and constant contact with the Palestine Exploration Fund (P.E.F.), helping British expedition members working in the field and also, importantly, sending back to London numerous reports on his explorations and discoveries and eyewitness accounts about everyday political and social matters which he thought might interest the P.E.F. and their members. Although there exist a number of major published studies dealing with the life of Schick (Carmel 1983, 1998 ; Strobel 1988 ; Goren 1992, 247 ff. ; 1998a), an overall assessment of his archaeological achievments has yet to be written (see recently Barkay 1998). This article deals specifically with the history of his links with P.E.F. and also with the hitherto unknown story of an Archaic Hebrew' inscription which Schick investigated in 1897 which sheds further light on the thriving business of archaeological forgeries in Jerusalem during the second half of the nineteenth century.